Why is every goddamn touch phone released being compared to the iphone. Every internet review does that. I mean an apple is an apple and an orange is an orange.

1. Highest % of satisfied owners.
2. Most successful 3rd party apps market.
3. It's well designed. By limiting their offering, they can practically deliver near 100% of what they promised.
4. Great marketing and hype machine.

I've not seen any sensible survey results to backup #1 but happy to be corrected.

Personally I would have put #4 as the first item as it leads onto the others.

I would conclude that #2 is mainly to do with #3 and then #1: limited main phone that requires applications to do what you want. All part of the marketing machine and done extremely well.

1. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/iphone-survey/
2. Has to do with good design and execution of app development and distribution (accessible and efficient devkits), marketing, shopfront, billing, etc. Agreeable business terms and ability to execute them as promised.
3. -
4. If the owners don't stickaround long enough, all the marketing might in the world will not help you.

To date, it has far above everyone else best answered the question: What is the role of an operating system in a handheld environment? The answer is simply to get out of the user's way. Make things happen the way users expect them to. The psychological effects are measurable. There are far fewer quirks that you just have to learn to live with. Also, it's linearly getting better and better. Transitioning to the enhancements is as smooth as the scrolling.